CDR SALAMANDER: What War, Exactly, are we Preparing for? Ignore the hype men, follow the money. “Fewer things in life are more true than the simple fact that if you really want to know what an organization values, look at what it spends its money on. By that measure, I’m not sure fighting and winning a war against our most capable adversary is really the priority. Something is – most likely the process – but few things are more clear in outlining the dead hand that is on the tiller of our national strategy than what we pulled across the transom this week.”